bookmama22

I was in room 9732 on recent cruise to Bermuda. Balcony has two lounge chairs, small table with two chairs. You can look down and see other balconies below but not an issue although it was gross on the last morning to look down while crusing up the Hudson and seeing plastic cups overflowing with cigarette butts in them on the table below. We did have to complain to Guest Services about people below us on both sides smoking on their balconies.

Regarding the muster drill, things have certainly changed as back on our first cruise on Celebrity, you brought your life jacket and the crew made sure that everyone knew how to use the life jacket. Same on the Holland America cruise we were on to the Panama Canal in 2009 and twice on Princess most recently about 3 years ago.

Yes there are many options we did the bus because we bought 2 day bus/ferry passes. The bus ride from St. George to Hamilton allowed us to stop and tour the Crystal Caves which I would recommend anyway plus getting to see many spectacular mansions on the eastern outskirts of Hamilton, plus kids coming home from school.

Yes we had two emails with links to complete the post-cruise survey and neither worked.

I did not download the app because I had already reserved Burn the Floor, Rock of Ages and dinner for the first 3 nights.

I originally thought we would have dinner one night in Sheehan's and did not because it was incredibly noisy and unfortunately the Shanghai Noodle Bar which sounded like a fun option was located in the casino which reeked from smoke

The ship docks at the Royal Naval Dockyard on the northern side of the island. Horseshoe Bay is on the southern side of Bermuda, it is about a 45 bus ride from Royal Naval Dockyard. We took the ferry to Hamilton which is about a 20 minute ride every hour on the hour I believe and the bus from Hamilton which is about 20 minute or so ride. The buses are good because you can see a lot of the island. There will be plenty of taxis as well when you get off the ship and again at Horseshoe.

It is a nice beach but it can get crowded. We only spent about 2 hours or so there but we go to the beach all the time anyway.

We took a Fodor's Guide to Bermuda out of the library and it was very helpful.

Some nights there are 3 shows, some nights 2. The 7 PM show is improv and family friendly. That was the only one we were able to get reservations for so we did that before dinner. The 9 PM is sketch comedy and so is the 11 PM which is adults only.

We were at Burn the Floor on Friday night at the 9:30 show, plenty of empty seats.

Just off the Breakaway, Deck 9 large balcony. We heard absolutely zero noise at night, very nice.

Just back from the Breakaway and we complained 2x to Guest Services and to a group of officers strolling around about the rampant smoking in many places. I even saw someone smoking by the kiddie pool. By midweek people smoked openly at the bar on the pool deck. I took pictures of the ashes dropped on my balcony table from above and the glass full of cigarette butts on the table of the balcony below. Either NCL does not care to enforce their policies or they attract people as passengers who know that NCL does not care.

They only post the smoking policy in tiny print in the daily and on the TV ship channel. Hey NCL, how about making an announcement about smoking?? You seem to manage to announce the endless art auctions a zillion times.

You cannot reserve Second City in advance so you will need to go to the Box Office on the first night. Our experience was that the kiosks did not work. We were only able to get Second City once.

Best entertainment venue on the ship is Fat Cats Jazz & Blues Club with Charlie Love... they are great!

It is interesting to see everyone's perspective but I will agree that this ship is "work" because you do need to plan. I had a colleague who had been on this cruise last October tell me to reserve Second City but inexplicably you cannot do that in advance. On boarding day, we were told to use the kiosk but that did not work. Then we were directed to the Box Office but had to go back because they were not there until 6 PM or so. Enjoyed Second City but were only able to get reservations once. We really enjoyed Fat Cats, the blues and jazz club and ended up there every night. Did not enjoy Howl at the Moon at all, lasted about 10 minutes as it sounded exactly like people Howling. Rock of Ages was fine, happy to see it as I had no interest in seeing it on Broadway when it was on. The dance troupe was very talented, just not very interesting. We saw them Friday night but had I known that they were appearing on Saturday night in the Manhattan Room I would not have gone Friday night.

The Muster drill was terrible and I cannot believe that NCL considered that to be adequate. We had to muster in Sheehan's no life jacket required. You could not see or hear anything and people who were already drinking just continued to do so. Since there were video screens in Sheehan's why not show the information as they do on the TV in your room.

Just off the Breakaway. We saw many families and many kids having lots of fun. We only used the main dining rooms although we did use the Buffet for lunch and the last morning for breakfast. There is also a fresh made burger stand on Deck 16, above the buffet level which also has a salad bar.

Not much of the evening entertainment is great for kids.

The gym is smaller than on other ships. First morning my husband went at 7 AM and every machine was in use, every exercise mat was taken. He found it better to go in the late afternoon. Unfortunately the sauna/steam room are only available if you buy a full 7 day spa pass. Very disappointing.

Just off the Breakaway. I only happened to see Prime Rib on the last night in the Manhattan Room.

Just back from Bermuda on the Breakaway. We bought 2 day ferry/bus pass on the dock just off the ship. On day 2 we took the ferry to Hamilton and then the #7 bus to Horseshoe Bay, then picked up the bus back to Royal Navy Dockyard. Very easy. If you don't want to use ferry/bus, you can easily pick up group cab on the pier. It is a 20 minute ferry ride to Hamilton, a 45 minute ferry ride to St. George which we did on Day #1.Some people just got off the ship and lined up for the bus.

You can rent an umbrella and two lounge chairs at the beach for $40. There is only so much time you might want to spend there. You can't really do much swimming as there are strong rip currents and Portugeuse Man of War warnings.

We live on the South Shore of Long Island so go to the beach all summer so while very nice, I wouldn't spend an entire day at Horseshoe.

It's been a very long time since I was last in St. Martin/St Maarten, close to 30 years. DH and I stayed both times at hotels in Marigot and we really loved those vacations.. so we are leaving in a few weeks for an Eastern Caribbean cruise and that is one of the stops. We were planning to take a cab and spend some time wandering around, see if the hotels we stayed at are still around and how much it has changed. We did this on a cruise stop to Aruba and Curacao about 4 years ago and neither hotel we had stayed at had really change. The Aruba location had expanded across the road with a casino and condos but the original footprint of the hotel was as we remembered it, although now it was an all-inclusive.

Had originally looked at just renting in Grand Case instead of going on a cruise but as it has been so long ago wasn't really sure and didn't want to commit..